The former National Institute of Fashion Technology graduate is fresh off her international runway debut, having scored two runway shows (Zimmermann and Misha Nonoo) at the recently concluded New York Fashion Week.

"India has always seemed like a wonderland to the rest of the world, and that's the exact reaction I get when I tell people where I'm from," the 24-year-old from Pune says. "Though they don't usually guess my ethnicity at first, but my accent leaves them with no doubt."

After winning a local beauty pageant in Hyderabad in 2007, Ramachandran headed for the ramp at Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai, but her auditions in India couldn't be more different than what she experienced in New York this month, she says.

"Here, there's pre-casting which can go up to almost 15 different calls a day, call backs, final casting and then individually allotted time slots for fittings for each designer. In India you are grouped in a pool of models for the entire fashion week, after you make it past the auditions."

Although family and industry friends back home have been cheering her on, Ramachandran insists running between auditions hasn't allowed her time to reply to messages or even Google herself.

With her agency Anima Creatives advising her to stay put in New York for now, Ramachandran's concentrating on cracking the competitive international market, where only a handful of Indian runway models like Lakshmi Menon and Ujjwala Raut have experienced success in the past.

"It's not an easy or comfortable industry," she says. "The best and most experienced models from around the world are competing here. It requires a lot of focus, will power and determination, but I plan to give it my 100 per cent."

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Natasha Ramachandran documents the buzz backstage at Zimmermann New York Fashion Week